People, even in today's high tech society, still gain enormous pleasure from receiving a personal greeting card, be it for a birthday, anniversary etc. A visit into any greeting card retail outlet gives the purchaser the option of buying a variety of cards. In addition to the traditional type of card having a written message, alternative types of multimedia cards, for example, cards which include a recorded voice message are also available.
Historically, and by their very nature, cards are used to communicate a message from the sender to the recipient. Cards are communicated most often by post, and the sender is usually remote from the recipient. Therefore, cards are largely seen as a one-way communication device without means for reciprocal communication.
In our society, which benefits from a variety of modes of communication other than post, and indeed a variety of multimedia communication means, users have ever increasing expectations of the types of communication they wish to use. There is therefore a demand for an improved type of card which utilises some of the alternative or complementary communication means available to users.
There are therefore a number of problems with conventional cards that need to be addressed.